


It's Quiet Uptown

by selinipainter



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post-Season/Series 03 Finale, also STARRING DELINQUENTS BEING HAPPY IN THE BACKGROUND, not tagging that tho because i wrote it in to give closure, there's a touch of clexa here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 22:49:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6726532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selinipainter/pseuds/selinipainter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Just let me stay here, by your side. That would be enough.</i> </p><p>Even the Wanheda deserves her moment of quiet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Quiet Uptown

**Author's Note:**

> WADDUP HAMILTON REFERENCE
> 
> i wonder if anyone took bets on whether i would give in and do a hamilton inspired fic bc dude you got lucky
> 
> also there is an unconscious THG reference in here, plz spot it and give a holla'

She worries, because it’s only forty of them against the world. There’s no safety net of the adults anymore. No parents too, and Clarke actually has to grip at a tall rock at that. They are all orphans now, with no place in this world. No dropship to go home to, only shelters that they must build out of their bare hands.

They look happier than they have in a long, long while though. Octavia and Monty guiding the younger ones to swim, Harper leading the charge towards the sea pools.

Clarke lets them be, walks up a sand dune and finds a convenient log.

It doesn’t help that she can still remember the weight of having Lexa’s head on her shoulder. She can remember an entire life built together in that other world, of meeting her again. Falling in love and coffee dates in a world that never knew the bombs, waking up to her beautiful face on lazy weekends. A world that she had never been angry with her mum, a world that Wells and her parents were still alive in.

She hates that she misses the ships in bottles that she had built with her dad. She can remember the cooking lessons with her mum, and game nights with her parents. Clarke misses the football matches with her dad and Wells too. And oh, Wells. Her first friend, her brother. He had been so happy; an entire lifetime he could never live.

It had seemed so real, too real. She nearly fell for it, nearly gave in and left them behind. There’s a bitter taste of longing and regret that stays with her, the what ifs and could have beens. Longing for Lexa, for the escape that the girl had become. The heady feeling of having the fealty of the goddamn Commander of the Grounders.

Worse yet is the regret, because she nearly had broken her word that he wouldn’t have to do this alone. That she would not leave him behind.

Because if the other reality’s memories had seemed too real, they are always erased when she thinks of Bellamy’s bone pale face when she finally comes to and his broken whispers, over and over, “Come home.” The bruising grip he had on her had kicked her back a little too, because it was pain and pain was real. There’s a feeling in a gut that makes her think, he had never even realized what he was saying, gone into panic of losing her.

It’s no point dwelling on all of this though, she knows. There’s so much to be done, homes to be built, people to bandage and a wilderness to carve life out of. (And just maybe a boy to stand with, to stand beside together.)

He comes up beside her, the kids all still enjoying the sea. Miller and Bryan are holding up Raven by the water, and she seems so much better now, laughing and trying to kick her legs as far as she can.

Bellamy looks more at peace, settled in his skin in a way that reminds her of the first month on the ground. There are angles to his face that are new, and his hair looks inviting enough to touch. She doesn’t, even though she nearly reaches out.

“Hey there, sailor. Getting in a good sulk?” he says.

She laughs, “It’s about years in the making, being a teen and all that right.”

He hesitates, and then sits beside her. “Are you ok, I mean.”

Clarke can’t say anything, can’t lie to him. She can’t bring herself to tell him about her nightmares and her dreams of the other reality. It’s not because she doesn’t want to, but she doesn’t know how to start. 

Bellamy gets it immediately. He touches her knee and stays quiet beside her, a steady rock by her side. He watches the kids, the kids who they are now responsible for fully. At least, Luna has given them basic supplies to begin with, and a standing offer of help. But there are some things that they do not have, things that they must find a way to get.

Eventually, she finds her words and begins. She tells him of finding Lexa in the City of Light, of dinners with her parents and a moonlight engagement by her favorite park. She tells him of Wells and his three kids, of happy hours with him and Jasper. She talks about the ships in bottles and the art gallery she curated for. There was a world where her mom and dad had stood side by side, watching her graduate. It was not this one.

She even finds herself talking about seeing a hallucination of him, when she realized that there was something missing in that reality. He never had talked, just hovered at the corner of her vision more and more as the days passed. Occasionally, Raven too showed up. A.L.I.E. having had a copy of her, meant that Raven at least talked a little.

The sense of missing things became more prominent when she realized her mother had never worn a wedding ring, that there was something off about her dad and Wells too. Even now, she doesn’t really know what made her finally snap to.

 

 

(She’ll remember years later, on a hazy morning, his voice reaching her whenever she slept in the other world. It had been his desperate pleas that broke through to her eventually.

That will be when Clarke burrows into his side, drawing all of him towards her. Her anchor and her home. Bellamy, still mostly asleep, will instinctively wrap himself around her and she will fall back asleep.

Later, all she will remember is the certainty that it had been him.)

 

 

She runs out of words, out of a story of another world and looks up at him. Bellamy’s looking back at her, something unknown in his eyes.

“Clarke.”  She knows it was nothing less than awe, right then. Awe mixed with a terrible weight of guilt and grief, for her.

He twists his hands, and looks down at his feet before going on, “I am sorry, Clarke. I… I know you don’t want to hear this, but I am and you could have stayed. You could have had your parents, and Wells and Lexa. And you came back. To us, to _me_. When…”

Bellamy looks haunted a little. (She doesn’t know this; she can never know this. He had the chip with him when he had waited, ready to swallow it so that he could go find her and bring her home. He had nearly taken it too, if it had not been for Octavia leaping at him when she had seen it.

“Not today, big brother,” she spat at him.)

Clarke breathes out, centers herself and says, “How do I make it stop?”

She knows him better than herself and trusts that he would not give her empty platitudes.

“You don’t, Clarke. You carry them, with you every step of the way. And you do it because this is the best thing you can do for them, to remember. It gets lighter though, a learned burden maybe.”

“Bellamy, I can’t do this, I _can’t_. I can’t spend another day, waking up not knowing what is real and what is not.”

“We figure it out, together. It will be better in time, not now. But you can’t let go,” Bellamy’s hand tightens on the log between them.

“Together, then,” she says and Bellamy smiles at her, a small and quiet thing.

And all she can think is of that night when he had given in, collapsed along all his soft places. The echoes of _I don’t want to feel this way anymore_ is ringing in her ears, and there’s an odd twist in her chest at the thought of his tears. Because of this boy, who she had ruined.

This boy that would burn for her, who _did_. This boy who could bring to her knees, and maybe love was weakness. Love was a flaw in a perfect system, and the only thing that could break it. Love was trust built from ground up, love was firelight in his hair and the rope that he always would throw down for her when she was drowning. Love was wanting his smile, watching his six. Love was their belief they were ok together.

She takes his hand.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired by the quietness [this song's melody](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c97oQbvb1Q) (not the utter tragedy of its lyrics good god). I tried to convey that quiet in this, and hope I succeeded.
> 
> My main goal for this story was to give Clarke some catharsis over what I suspect will come in the S3 finale. And over S2 too. The details of what I suspect will go down in S3 are a subject of my love of dramatic tragedies and honestly, I don't think it will go down exactly the same.
> 
> But I personally feel all the CoL inhabitants will die, because ALIE is a bitch and won't let them go. So, for those wondering, yeahhhhhh, sorry the adults are dead but hey the remaining delinquents are happy and will have a new home.
> 
> I am sorry if this story seems a little off, it's been nearly 6 months since I last wrote anything. Come scream at me [on tumblr](http://clarkxblake.tumblr.com/asksubmit) or down below in the comments tho. WE SHALL DIE OVER BELLARKE TOGETHER.


End file.
